Pray for North Korea

North Korea has been on the mind of my friend lately, and lo and behold, this month's Voice of the Martyrs newsletter was on North Korea, so I gave it to her. Then, we get an email that tells us a missionary who works with organizations to help North Korea will be speaking at one of our clubs (SSTOP, students stopping the trafficking of persons) on Thursday night. It was all very ironic and happened within a few days of us talking about North Korea in her room.

Anyways, we went to the meeting, which ended up lasting from 9:30 to 11, because we stayed and talked to the lady. Her name was Lisa, I think.

Here's a little history on North Korea. As everyone knows, no one is allowed in or out of the country. It is ran by an evil dictator named Kim Jung Il. His father, Kim Il Sung, is worshipped as the father, Kim Jung Il is the son, and they have another diety they worship called Juche, which represtents the spirit of unity amongst the people. The citizens of NK worship their dictator as a god, and it is required that every household has a picture of him that they bow down to. The country is very poor, but they plate statues of their leader with gold. The dictator starves his people for the benefit of the army.

China is free compared to NK. There is no freedom for North Koreans. This country is also the worst persecutor of Christians.

"The Persecuted Church Global Report 2010" from VOM reports that the population is 1.69% Christian, most of them being in concentration camps, according to our speaker, Lisa.

There are a total of 23 million people in North Korea. 13 million of the people are severly malnourished. In one decade, 3 million died from the famine. There are 400,000 refugees hiding in China, and 200,000 imprisoned in concentration camps. There are about 20 concentration camps in NK.

The only way to escape to freedom, preferrably South Korea or China, is through a river, where guards are lined up on the borders to shoot anyone or capture them to send them back, most likely to be executed or to concentration camps. The North Korean people are scared of Americans, Lisa said that they are taught in school that we have horns and tails! It's incredible the lies the people are being fed through their government.

There are very few NK refugees in the US. I think she said there were a total of around 40. What a small number. Many of them are Christians, and she has met a lot of them at rallies and galas.

Lisa told us she partners with three organizations to help the people.

One is called 318 Partners. They are going as a group to South Korea in April to launch balloons with aid over the border to the people of NK. Their website is http://www.318partners.org/

Another group is the North Korean Freedom Coalition. http://www.nkfreedom.org/

And the last one that centers more around young adults is LiNK. http://www.linkglobal.org/

To wrap this post up, I would encourage everyone who reads this to pray for North Korea. It is such a dark and hostile country. At breakfast this morning my friends and I reflected on how amazingly blessed we are to be eating a lot of food and reading the Bible openly. Unfortunately, this is not the norm in hostile countries, and the only way we can help right now is to pray. Lisa encouraged us to pray first for the government. Also pray for the people who are being tortured and starved by their leader. And finally, remember our brothers and sisters that are the only light in that country. God is powerful, and prayer can accomplish much.